Column

Don’t look now but the CPI(M) has joined the race for the PM’s post.

The name being bandied around is that of West Bengal’s suave, industry-friendly chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. So now, apart from Sharad Pawar, Mayawati and Nitish Kumar, we also have a Marxist challenging Manmohan Singh and LK Advani for the country’s top job.

Talk about being spoilt for choice! No election after the 1980 polls has seen so many PM contenders. It was Sitaram Yechury who floated the Buddhadeb balloon publicly at a rally in Darjeeling last week. He told the gathering that the BJP could not give the country a Bengali prime minister, that the Congress would never do so (a suggestive reference to reports that Sonia Gandhi does not fully trust the Left’s favourite Congressman, Pranab Mukherjee) and that the CPI(M) was the only party that could put a Bengali ``like Buddhadeb’’ in the PM’s chair.

You could say he was appealing to parochial sentiments in an area split by a Gorkha-Bengali divide. But there appears to be a design behind the unexpected chatter about Buddhadeb as the PM choice of the Third Front. The CPI(M)’s normally cautious general secretary Prakash Karat has been dropping hints about the Bengal CM too. At a press meet in Kolkata around the same time Yechury was floating the trial balloon in Darjeeling, Karat agreed that the Left could consider nominating someone for the PM’s post. When asked whether Buddhadeb could be that someone, Karat did not say no. Hesimply said the picture would clarify only after the results. The CPI(M) seems to have decided that it’s time to correct the historical blunder of 1996 when the Politburo vetoed a proposal to appoint party patriarch Jyoti Basu as PM of the United Front government. Significantly, the Congress was all for Basu at that time. Will it offer Buddhadeb the same support?

A different game is taking shape on the other side of the political divide. This one revolves around Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar as head of a government supported from the outside by the BJP. Likely partners include BJD, AIADMK, TDP, Trinamool Congress, AGP, NDA allies and a host of other small parties including the TRS, JMM, etc. It’s a different kind of Third Front government but a non-Congress, non-BJP one all the same. Critical to this plan is the stand taken by the BSP’s Mayawati and the role of the Left in the post-poll scenario. If Kumar can win over either, this option could take off once the BJP and the Congress are ruled out as pivots of a ruling alliance. In 1989, the Left and the BJP facilitated the emergence of V P Singh’s National Front government on an anti-Congress sentiment. Has the sentiment revived strongly enough for the two opposing ends of the political spectrum to overcome their ideological divisions to go in for another National Front type arrangement? The mind boggles at possible post-poll permutations and combinations.
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TAILPIECE
Pranab Mukherjee blamed his bad Hindi for the misunderstanding that led to aspat between him and Lalu Prasad Yadav. Yet, when they spoke over the phone after their verbal duel, guess which language they used to kiss and make up? Hindi! There were no language problems then, it seems. At the end of the conversation, Lalu told Mukherjee grandly that he is welcome to speak in English when he comes to campaign in Bihar so that there are no more communication mishaps.